This thesis explores the nexus between 'urban expressionism' and the potentiality of 'Asian urbanism(s)' by exploring ways that different planning paradigms have been located/dislocated in the case of New Songdo City, South Korea. By investigating four expressions of New Songdo City - as an 'Eco-City', a 'Smart City', an 'International City', and as the 'City of the Future' - this thesis argues that urban expressionism can make important contributions to the aims of Asian urbanism(s). Ultimately, this research demonstrates the ways that urban expressionism can be used to destabilize hegemonic Western-centric urban knowledge and city-building practices, and further point to new geographies of theory from which important contributions to urban research can be made. Urban expressions are made evident by various entwined urban rhetorics and worlding practices that operationalize multiple mediums of communication. Consequently, New Songdo City is, first and foremost, a city of simultaneity. To investigate this simultaneity, this research utilizes an exploratory case study approach and multiple qualitative methods that include semi-structured interviewing, focus groups, and surveys to gather insights from residents of Songdo, local experts, public and private sector actors, and other key stakeholder groups. Visual analysis is also used to explore mixed-mediums of data, including promotional videos, images, exhibition displays, magazines, and advertisements. The methods used to undertake this thesis provide a glimpse in to the development of New Songdo City and capture different urban expressions that are articulated by the city through various examples of urban rhetoric and worlding practices. The urban expressions presented in the New Songdo City case are analysed through the lens of Asian urbanism(s) and investigate the ways that hegemonic Western and Euro-centric conceptualizations of 'the urban' and 'the city' have been deployed, articulated, experienced, challenged, and complicated. By extension, this thesis also contributes to a more nuanced conceptualization of Asian urbanism(s) as well as the relevance of New Songdo City for urban theory in South Korean, Asian, and more generalizable contexts.

abstract: This project analyzes the efforts of Seoul Grand Park Zoo (the largest and most important zoo on the Korean peninsula) to develop and achieve the highest standards in conservation, education, animal welfare, and research over the last three decades. Founded primarily as an entertainment venue in 1984, the zoo has struggled to become a scientific center that adequately provides for the animals under its care and promotes the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. Drawing on interviews from zoo officials, academics, conservationists, and animal-rights activists, I explore the animal welfare management and conservation priorities of a prominent Asian institution. Although the zoo has made significant improvements in animal welfare, it remains constrained by limited resources and government indifference. These constraints have also restricted the zoo’s ambition to become a major center for conservation; it currently concentrates on a handful of projects with broad popular appeal. Based on my interviews, greater collaboration, better communication with other researchers, and more systematic sharing of data would be especially beneficial for expanding the zoo’s conservation agenda. As research and conservation become a more prominent part of the zoo’s portfolio, potential conflicts may arise with zoo’s current emphasis on the welfare of the individual animals under its care. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Biology 2015

本論文將分析1997年以後韓國資訊化產業發展過程，探討政府介入將會造成IT產業的何種影響、並且在介入力度與政策手段上是否有關連性，以及政商關係等等作為研究基礎，並且針對韓國IT產業發產來探討政府所扮演的角色。 本文認為韓國資訊產業的成功的是由於在1997年金融危機發生後韓國財閥與金融體系受到重挫與整頓，而政府在此情況下的產業政策與財閥經營方針轉以「集中與選擇」為原則，全力發展IT產業並以此帶動韓國在危機當中的經濟轉型。而整頓後的韓國政府與財團間的關係不若之前來的緊密，政府同時也開始扶持新創企業成立。在2002年「十大未來成長動力產業」中，韓國政府也開始調整其角色定位，從強力介入、引導慢慢轉為輔助民間並且提供政策支援。

The present generation lives in the new information age as a result of rapid computer developments and the accessibility of the internet. Therefore, in the 21st century the world has to come to grips with the cyber space culture. Internet connections in South Korea, as in many countries in the world, make access to the world available in every house. Therefore, it is a necessity to understand the internet culture and internet is becoming part of everyday life. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, the most important attribute of the mission is missio Dei: the mission is God’s mission. God is a missionary God and mission has its origin in God. And finally, God also calls people as missionaries to share his love with the world. According to Bosch (1991:368-372), our daily life has become so fast and constantly changing that we cannot use past methods to be effective today. Therefore we need a paradigm shift in our thinking towards missions today, to become more relevant. There is a need for the church to understand this paradigm shift, and implement it into its thinking and practice of mission. Cyber mission is becoming important in the information age, and there are many advantages and disadvantages to it. These advantages are to be managed carefully. It is the church's responsibility to use cyber space to the advantage of God's Kingdom. The opening up of cyber space may prove to be a gift from God to his church today. Many Christians began to share their faith with others in cyber space through the internet and internet evangelism and cyber missions were born. Today, the internet has become one of the available means of sharing and proclaiming the Gospel. It offers us incredible power to share the Good News. The Christian has the great responsibility to the great commission to deliver the gospel to the end of the earth through the cyber Mission. The South Korean church became a strong Christian church, ranking as the second missionary sending country in the world of today. The South Korean church developed the cyber mission, as they realized the power of the internet. Most of the churches have their own web site and they have already started to use the cyber space for church ministry. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted

Within the context of the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China, one hears frequently about Chinese "soft power". This work deals with Chinese soft power in three Asian subregions - Southeast Asia, Japan & South Korea and Central Asia - in order to verify to what extent can soft power be regarded a universal approach in Chinese foreign policy. After introducing the concept of soft power this work is aiming to explain the characteristics of Chinese soft power, define the potentials and limits of Chinese soft power resources and explain how soft power corresponds with China's general strategy of foreign policy. In order to create an image of Chinese soft power in each of the three subregions, I define the key soft power tools according to which I measure Chinese soft power: Bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, promotion of culture and language (mainly through Confucius institutes), education of foreign students at Chinese universities and foreign aid. The rest of work is an analysis of employment of these tools in the respective subregions.

The thesis focuses on the development of the South Korean financial system, especially on the period since the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis that hit Southeast Asia in 1997, to the present. The aim of this thesis is to describe and evaluate the measures taken to combat this crisis, identify remaining challenges and threats and evaluate the current financial sector stability.

ble agreement did not exist due to the involved parties' irreconcilable positions. Two hypoth- eses addressing factors that are exogenous to the negotiations such as the parties' underlying negotiators' pursuits within the Six

This thesis investigates the formation of national identity in South Korea regarding Japan through the perception of Japan in the eyes of the South Korean people. Despite Korea’s independence from Japan in 1945, the complex relationship resulting from the historical events seems continual, blocking their further cooperation. The ethnic relation between these two countries has been revolving around socio-political issues. In this sense, this thesis focuses on the micro-level to understand the ethnic relationship, which is visible through the formation of national identity. By adopting the constructivist point of view, this research identifies the core elements of national identity in the case of South Korean people through the application of national identity theories. This research employs semi-structured interviews to attain primary data from the Korean interviewees. Secondary sources are complemented from the presidential speech to provide an insight into the constitution of South Koreans’ national identity in parallel. Thematic analysis is utilized from these two data sets to explore the national identities by generating the themes of history, Japanese goods, and imagery. The perception of South Korean people toward Japan has revealed that they take the colonial history into account the most in their constitution of national identity.

This study started with the awareness of the problem of government influence on the press in democracies in the 21st century. In other words, to ensure that the press can freely and faithfully fulfil its role as a ‘watchdog’ for power as originally sought by the 21st-century democracies, it is necessary to face up to how and in what way the governments have exerted their influence on the press. Accordingly, the study aimed to identify what and how governments in the 21st-century democracies exerted on the press, how the media environment responded to it, and what perceptions journalists have of their government’s influence. To this end, as objects of the study, the researcher took two countries of the East and the West, South Korea and Germany, that are externally recognized as countries with freedom of the press due to their fairly developed democratic systems and that have different forms of government. Also, as a qualitative research method, case study and in-depth interviews were carried out sequentially.

South Korean cities have experienced remarkable economic growth starting from the 1980s, characterised by energy-dependent models coupled with a rapid, dense urbanisation process. This growth model has incrementally induced carbon-intensive urban structures that have consequently produced socio-environmental degradation and severe challenges to sustainability. A range of efforts to solve such challenges has not succeeded in breaking strong path-dependencies on existing unsustainable structures, and this concern has raised the necessity to develop a new urban approach towards sustainability. Given that concern, a growing body of literature has endeavoured to understand the processes of ‘sustainability transformations’, and shares an underlying assumption that such change co-evolves with societal agency that collectively creates networks, within which decisions and strategies are developed, negotiated, and implemented. This recognition has raised the essential question about which factors are required for the agency to initiate and perform such transformations in the process of urban development. Against this background, this research aims to examine factors that critically influence the emergence of urban transformation processes by exploring interrelations that appear between them. In particular, the research focuses on the critical role of governance characteristics to influence the emergence of transformation factors. In order to explore the factors in practice, a case study is conducted through document analysis and in-depth interviews. The real-world case selected in this research is the Eco-capital Suwon in South Korea, a pioneering model of sustainability-oriented urban development that employs a set of transformative experiments across action domains. Additionally, this case is critical in that its wider context—in which a more state government-led, centralised practice is dominant—would generate abundant dynamics of interactions across administrative scale levels. In order to scrutinise the factors that are employed not only in the Eco-capital in general but more specifically in its different projects, the research selects three projects as the sub-cases based on the different governance characteristics, as well as action domains. The three selected projects cover the domains of (rain) water management, green transportation, and renewable (solar) energy, which display multiple, unique forms of participation of (inter)national/urban/neighbourhood-scale agency from the public and private sector, academia and research institutes, civil society, and Suwon’s individual citizens and residents. The research has derived the primary findings: 1) ‘Inclusive governance’ encompasses collaborative actor networks and partnerships; and 2) Intermediaries working across different domains and scale levels condition the emergence and characteristics of agency-related factors for urban transformations. The research makes a set of contributions not only to theoretical discussions on urban transformation, but also to policy and practice in urban governance and planning. First, the selected case and its analytical design help to display: 1) a less explored phenomenon where cross-scalar interactions are often constrained by wider political systems (‘why cross-scalar interactions could not occur’); and 2) a clearer understanding of the geographical unit that is advantageous for the emergence of multi-system transformations (where multi-system transformations could occur). Second, the empirical findings shed light on discussions surrounding urban transformation by verifying arguments about the significance of governance characteristics. In addition, the case analysis suggests shifting from domain-specific transformations to domain-transecting, co-evolutionary transformations, such as a water-energy nexus approach. By extension, the research provides a set of policy recommendations to accelerate urban transformations. Finally, the research suggests options for future comparative studies on how ‘place’ conditions reconfiguration dynamics in urban development.:Acknowledgements Declaration of authorship Executive summary Table of contents List of tables List of figures Abbreviations Notes on the presentation of findings 1. Introduction 2. Capacity factors for urban sustainability transformation 2.1 Cities for sustainability 2.2 Urban sustainability transformations 2.3 Agency-related capacity factors for urban transformations 2.4 Raising questions 3. Methodology 3.1 Research design 3.2 Research methods 4. Case study of the Eco-capital Suwon 4.1 Suwon city: main characteristics 4.2 The Eco-capital Suwon for urban transformations 5. Agency and governance characteristics 5.1 Inclusive governance at the centre of transformations 5.2 Transformative leadership arising from diverse sectors 5.3 Communities of ‘practice’ beyond a network 5.4 Conclusions 6. Knowledge and social learning through interaction 6.1 New knowledge on systemic dynamics and its application to governance structures and institutions 6.2 (Co-)production of knowledge and transitional goals for the urban future 6.3 Social learning that leads to change 6.4 Conclusions 7. Community-based innovation and enabling environment for its acceleration 7.1 Neighbourhood-scale activities by communities of practice 7.2 Supportive regulatory framework and inclusive planning for community-based activities 7.3 Conclusions 8. Multi-dimensional processes of systems change 8.1 Diverse levels of agency with different contributions 8.2 Trans-scale and cross-scale dynamics 8.3 Conclusions 9. Conclusions Appendix 1 Summary of interviewees Appendix 2 South Korea’s local government system (as of 2018) Appendix 3 Overview of participatory programmes of Suwon Appendix 4 Studies on urban transformative capacity References